
Class ^fS 
Book J_2 



1 1 c 






•publication of tlje 

IGtttroltt i>nrt0tg 

nf p^kakill. N. f . 






NO. 2 




Jlrorrfoutos at tiir S>nirnth Amtual Simtrr of Ihr 
IGittroht ^orirty of $rrkslull, N. f . 



iKonoay iEmmuuu iFrbntaru 13, 1911 



Copyrisiht 1911, by the Lincoln Society. 



HIGHLAND DEMOCRAT CO.. PRI 






■' • ■ ■ *■■* 



© CI. : 



^PUBLICATION of the LINCOLN SOCIETY 

J*. OF PEEKSK1LL, N. Y. 

i^_ No. 2 

PROCEEDINGS OF THE SEVENTH ANNUAL DINNER OF THE 
LINCOLN SOCIETY, OF PEEKSKILL, N. Y. 



Another din-ner of the Lincoln Soci- 
ety of the village of Peekskill has 
passed into history- Like its six prede- 
cessors it was an unqualified success. 
Nothing occurred to mar the pleasure 




HOMER ANDERSON, 

or the enjoyment of the evening. It 
was held at the Eagle Hotel, Peeks- 
kill's leading and most popular hotel, 
which has been the headquarters of the 
Lincoln Society since the latter 's or- 
ganization and where all seven Lincoln 
dinners have been held. It was well 



attended, the decorations were pretty, 
the menu card was unique, the dinner 
itself was Al and served well and 
promptly by Proprietor George Winters 
and his assistants; the addresses of 
President Anderson, Rev. Richard E. 
Bell, Hon. Merton E. Lewis, Hon. Rich- 
ard E. Connell and Dr. Arthur H. El- 
liott were as fine speeches as ever 
heard in Peekskill at a public dinner 
— in a word, it was a dinner replete 
with interest and delight from start 
to finish. 

The directors of the society had met 
the previous Saturday evening at the 
Eagle and practically completed all 
plans and arrangements for the ban- 
quet. 

Monday afternoon Charles W. Swain 
had decorated the cozy dining room of 
the Eagle with a profusion of flags and 
bunting which were festooned on all 
four walls and on the arches. The of- 
ficers' and speakers' table was at the 
east end of the dining room, running 
north and south. The other banquet- 
ers were seated at small round and 
square tables accommodating four, six 
and eight people. By this method it 
was possible to make up parties of 
friends and acquaintances at individ- 
ual tables, which was more pleasant 
and agreeable than at the long tables 
too often used at local banquets. Each 
table had a conspicuous number (from 
one to eighteen) upon it, and Dr. Al- 
bert E. Phin, of the dinner committee, 
had small cards to distribute among 
the gentlemen as they arrived, so that 
each might easily find his table and 



"get together in groups" as in many 
cases previously arranged. 

The tables were decorated with smi- 
lax and a carnation was at each plate. 
Lemuel Haines had the floral adorn- 
ments in charge. 

As early as 7 o'clock the ticket hold- 
ers had begun to arrive, check their 
coats and bats in the coat room and 
wander aboul the foy< r, chatting pleas- 
antly and socially as the time passed. 




J. COLERIDGE DAEROW. 

The out of town speakers, Congress- 
man Connell, I X-Senator Lewis and Dr. 
Elliot, had arrived at the Eagle about 
6 o'clock and were prest Qted to the 

members and the guests at the fire- 
place as th< y came in. There an In- 
formal reception was tendered them. 
The dinner hour was called for half- 
•i. following the example set 

l,\ the recent dinner of the Board ol 
Trade, hut. unlike thai one. which 
started two or thr< 6 minutes late, it 
was a quarter to eight before the < I i i i 

Ing room doors were opened on Mod 

day Qtghl and tin- :■,> nl lemen |iassed 

in to tin- scene <>f Bplendor and bril- 



liancy which met every eye as one 
entered the dining room. 

The banqueters soon found their 
places. At the long table President 
Homer Anderson had the seat of honor 
at the center. At his right were Rev. 
Richard E. Bell, Treasurer Edward F. 
Hill, ex-Senator Merton E. Lewis, As- 
semblyman Frank H. Young, ex-As- 
semblyman James K. Apgar, and Al- 
lan L. Sutton. At the president's left 
were Congressman Richard E. Connell, 
Acting Secretary Geo. E. Briggs, Dr. 
Arthur H. Elliott, Leverett F. Crumb, 
Dr. A. D. Dunbar. Rev. Custer C. Rich. 

When all were at their chairs, Presi- 
dent Anderson rapped for order and 
Rev. Richard E. Bell invoked the divine 
blessing. The following excellent menu 
was then served promptly and cour- 
teously by eleven waitresses: 

Little Neck Clams 

Bisque of Lobster 

Celery Salted Almonds Olives 

King Pish Wine Sauce 

I 'otatoes Parisii nne 

Filet of Beef Larded Mushroom E 

i !a ndied Yams 

Lincoln Punch 

Broiled Philadelphia Squab Chicken or 

Toast a la Jardiniere 

Waldorf Salad 

Neapolitan Ice Cream Assorted CakeS 

Toasted Crackers Roquefort 

Demi Tasse Cigars 

On entering the dining room. Val< n- 
tine's orchestra played, as they did 
during the dinner si rvie. . The mu- 
sical program of the evening was this: 

March Good Templer Uford 

i ni. i mezzo from i [oschna 

Madam Sherry, 

Concert Walt/. Zita 

Janet. 

Selection Two Roses Roberta 

Englander's comic opera 

Novelette Sal«er 

Lurch ami Ladles. 

Select Ion Half's ( ipera 

Bohemian Girl. 

.Marei, Hustler Cr< ■ ■! 

i loncert Walt/. Toblna 

i m Scotch Melodies. 
Selection Victor in rbert 

Naught > Mari. I la 

Serenade Camp 

The Prophet King. 

i.. ni.' w ard 

1 1. votion, 

Fantasic Ketchum 

For Clarionet 
Man h Exl1 Stahl 



When the Lincoln punch had been 
reached, President Anderson rapped 
with his gavel for order and announced 
that according to the by-laws and cus- 
tom the annual business meeting would 
be held. 

Acting Secretary Briggs read the le- 
gal notice or call for the meeting pub- 
lished as per law in the Highland 
Democrat. He then read the following 
report of the secretary: 
To the officers and members of the 

Lincoln Society in Peekskill: 

Gentlemen. — In accordance with our 
by-laws your secretary has the honor 
to report at this annual meeting that 
there are 150 members on the rolls of 
the society; that there are 26 honorary 
members; that our silent comrades num- 
ber 20; that since the last annual meet- 
ing' we have lost by death the Hon. Wil- 
liam Wood (the second honorary mem- 
ber to die), Mr. A. Judson Barrett and 
Mr. S. Lothrop Fowler. 

That the property of the society con- 
sists of one book case of five shelves, 
one bust and pedestal of Lincoln, one 
combination desk and shelf rack, one 
miniature log cabin (a perfect fac-simile 
of Lincoln's birthplace). 

Pictures, glass framed — President Lin- 
coln and his family, Emancipation Proc- 
lamation, Lincoln's Address at Gettys- 
burgh, Lincoln Letter to Mrs. Bixby on 
the loss of her five sons in battle. 

Books — Miss Tarbell's Life of Lincoln, 
in four volumes, History of Lincoln's 
Administration, H. J. Raymond; Anec- 
dotes of Lincoln, one volume; Words of 
Lincoln, one volume; Baldwin's Life of 
Lincoln; The Perfect Tribute, Mary S. 
Andrews, one volume; Poetic Selections 
on Lincoln. 

Memorial Addresses on Lincoln, Gar- 
field and McKinley; a large and detach- 
able loose leaf scrap book containing 
all documents of interest to the society; 
programs, letters, tickets, etc.; newspa- 
per clippings, pamphlets, etc., relating 
to Lincoln and to this and other Lincoln 
societies; engravings of Lincoln, Wash- 
ington, McKinley; large photos of Presi- 
dents McKinley and Garfield; four cuts 
and medallions of Lincoln. 

Respectfully submitted, 
J. COLERIDGE DARROW, 

Secretary. 

The treasurer, Edward P. Hill, then 
read his annual report of receipts and 
expenditures showing that the society 
was as prosperous financially as it was 
popular sentimentally. The report of 
the committee on nominations, Hon. 
James K. Apgar, Hon. Isaac H. Smith 
and Dr. A. D. Dunbar, was called for, 



and through ex-Assemblyman Apgar 
reported the following names for di- 
rectors: Homer Anderson, J. Coleridge 
Darrow, Edward Finch Hill, A. D. Dun- 
bar, James K. Apgar, Isaac H. Smith. 
Allan L. Sutton, Leverett F. Crumb, 
Alzamore H. Clark, Perley H. Mason, 
Hugh J. McGowan, Wilbur L. Ellis, 
John Smith, Jr., Geo. E. Briggs, Clif- 
ford Couch, Albert Ellis Phin, Fred F. 
Roe. 

On motion of H. Alban Anderson. 




EDWARD F. HILL, 

the secretary was instructed to cast 
one ballot for these directors. This 
was done and the president declared 
these gentlemen elected dirctors for 
the ensuing year. On motion the busi- 
ness meeting adjourned and the satia- 
tion of the inner man proceeded. The 
coffee was served and the smoke from 
the fragrant and popular Imperial cig- 
ars was curling ceilingward when at 
9.25 p. m. the president arose, called 
for order and announced that among 
the many letters of regret received 
there were a number which Acting 
Secretary Briggs would read. They 
follow: 



Peekskill, Feb. 13, 1911. 
J. Coleridge Darrow, Secretary: 

My Dear Friend — In consequence 01 
the illness of my sun. i n grel that I 
will he unable to attend the seventh an- 
nual dinner of the Lincoln Society this 
i \ ening, Feb. 13. 

Vours very truly, 

JOIIX HAL.STED. 




A. D. DUNBAR. 

Pasadena, I !al., Feb. I. 1911. 
■I Coleridge Darrow, Secretary, Lincoln 
Socii tj . Peekskill, N. v.: 

sir I a in in receipt of your in\ i- 
tation to at tend the Lincoln dinnei on 
!■'■ b i 3 l tii 1 1 > appri ciate j our kind 

thoughtfulness In rememl g me a* 

one of your association, although three 
thousand miles awaj i regrei very 

much thai I cannot be with yoi this 

Ion and enjoj that "feast or rea- 
son and ii"\\ of soul" which have always 
attended these banquets. 

• to l-.lmu I 1 1 1 1 0U1 

•i foi on -I for t he noble purpi 

1 le ry or our mar- 

Prei nil hi i ,lncoln, i In pi 

of our count ry i \\ h leeds will live 

until i inn shall bo no mor< I still ex- 
i d continui 

the pati lot i m and fldi III best 

cit Izena of Peek kill without r< gard to 
with imt the 
■ingle pui I'"- e ot keeping In grateful 
I'm. iiiiu .in. . mi. ..I 1 1, i men 



of his day — Abraham Lincoln. 

Again expressing my regret of my in- 
ability tn be with you, I am 
Very truly yours, 

IiOBKKT A. UOTC'IIL. 



New York. Jan. 26, 1911. 
Homer Anderson, President, the Lincoln 
Society, Peekskill, X. Y.: 
Dear Sir — I very much regret that ow- 
ing to a broken thigh which confines me 
to my home that l shall not be able to 
avail myself of your very kind invitation 
to attend your Lincoln dinner at i'eeKs- 
kill on Feb. 13. With my very best 
and heartiest good wishes for the suc- 
cess of your dinner and the continued 
■ • i ss of your sociel y. 1 remain. 
Yours very sincerely, 

\Y.\I. P. ROOME, 

R. J. 1 lemon, Sec. 



Jan. 23, 1911. 
J. Coleridge Darrow: 

My Dear Mr. Darrow— 1 have your fa- 
vor of the 19th inst.. inviting me to be 
with the Lincoln Society on the even- 
ing of Feb. 13. I am engaged to deliver 
my little talk on Lincoln for that even- 
ing here In XeW Yolk, otherwise I should 

be glad to be with you, for l have mighty 
pleasant recollections of yourself and 
Peekskill in general. 

Yours faithfully, 

HENRI W. KNIGHT. 



New York. Feb. 2, L911. 
.1. Coleridge Darrow, Esq., Secretary, The 
Lincoln Society, I 'eekskill, ... v 
My I (ear M r. I (arrow I wish I ■ 
knowledge the receipt of resolutions. 
signed by you as secretary, of Jan, 23, 
1 1. 1 r. relat Ive t" the .bath of my father. 
Judge w I, one of your honorary mem- 
bers. Tin- judge was very much inter- 
ested in your society, and it is very 
pleasant for me to think that he was 
held ill SUCh high est.ein by his fellow 

members. Kindlj express to the mem- 
bers the appreciation of myself and sis- 
t. is of the courtesy and respect shown 
to the memorj of my father bj the Lin- 
coln Society. 

Yours very truly, 

ROBERT T WOOD 



Peekskill, N v 
i Coleridge Darrow, S 



r. i. to, 1911. 

i . t iry, Lincoln 
8ocl< ty, Pe< ksklll, N I 
m Deal Mi i 'ai row Mi i 'ugsley is 
elpt of t hi Lincoln Society's \ ery 
com t. ous ln> I tat I on to be present at 
their seventh annual dinner, and has re- 
quested in. to express to you ids Bin- 
ts that he cannot be with you 

mi whii h< feels assured will be a most 

Ion Mr Pugsley Is at 



present in Florida, where he is rapidly 
recovering' from his recent illness. 

H. A. ANDERSON, Sec'y. 



Washington, D. C, Jan. 26, 1911. 
Homer Anderson, Esq., President, The 
Lincoln Society, Peekskill, N. T. : 
My Dear Mr. Anderson — I am in re- 
ceipt of your very attractive invitation 
to attend the seventh annual dinner of 
the Lincoln Society, and deeply regret 
that I am engaged elsewhere. 
Yours very truly, 

CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW. 



Montrose, N. Y., Jan. 24, 1911. 
Homer Anderson, President; J. Coleridge 
Darrow, Secretary, and others, Com- 
mittee: 

Gentlemen — Your courteous invitation 
to the celebration of the birthday of 
Abraham Lincoln has been received. Ev- 
ery return of that time honored anniver- 
sary brings up, for me, a thousand mem- 
ories of those eventful four years which 
I spent with him in official life and daily 
intercourse. He was then, just as he 
seems to you now, the able lawyer, the 
genial politician, the greatly kindly-na- 
tured man, and the sagacious President. 
But, in those days he was face -to face 
with a storm of public and private hos- 
tility, and with a bitter hatred, not to be 
satiated until it had compassed his death. 
Every year since then has brought bet- 
ter appreciation of his character, fuller 
comprehension of the services ne ren- 
dered to his country, and a broader spirit 
of patriotism and sound sense among his 
countrymen of all sections. So every 
12th of February seems to bring with it 
brighter hope and promise for the future 
of the American people. 

Very sincerely yours, 

FREDERICK W. SEWARD. 



At the conclusion of the reading, 
President Anderson addressed the 
members and their friends, as follows: 

An extended welcome to you upon this 
occasion might well embody the ques- 
tion: Why are we here? And the an- 
swer would be, we are here in memory 
of the dead, the great, majestic, historic 
dead. Yet it may not be inappropriate 
that we pause a moment to give a 
thought to one who was personally 
known to us all, one whom we were glad 
to know, one whose voice we have heard 
at all of our previous dinners. It is 
my privilege to stand where we have 
been wont to see standing, that peerless 
presiding officer, the founder of this so- 
ciety, Benjamin C. Everinghim. 

For six consecutive anniversaries of 
the day we celebrate we listened to his 
pleasantries, his admirable wit, and his 
earnest, patriotic admiration of the il- 



lustrious Lincoln. He was intensely in- 
terested in this society. He was grati- 
fied beyond measure with the exalted 
position it has made for itself in this 
community, and no one would be more 
pleased than he with the evidences we 
have that the society has attained an 
almost nation-wide celebrity. 

At our annual elections Mr. Evering- 
him always signified a willingness to 
have some one else chosen for our pres- 
idency, but no other name was ever 
even mentioned to supplant his. The 
esteem in which he was held by this 




ISAAC H. SMITH. 

society, and his value to the society was 
evidenced by the shock it felt last win- 
ter, when, to use words of his own se- 
lection, after a fateful 

"Sunset and evening star 

And one clear call," 
he embarked with a "hope to meet his 
Pilot face to face." When Benjamin C. 
Everinghim "crossed the bar" I felt a 
personal loss, and it is with diffidence 
and sorrow that I endeavor to occupy 
the station he so admirably filled. Yei 
I have a pride in being chosen for this 
position, a pride that has its origin 
away back in those eventful days when 
every loyal citizen felt an irrepressible 
determination to do ids part, regardless 
of cost or sacrifice, to preserve these 
United States in their entirety. 

After the first great reverse to our 
armies President Lincoln called for 
500,000 men. I am proud that as one 



of the humblesl of the volunteers who 
responded to that call, I am permitted 
to be alive 19 years after my enlistment, 
proud at tliis distance in time t<> wit- 
ness the success of a society like this; 
to see sueli representative men as your- 
selves manifest so much interest in an 
occasion like this, t>> note that the name 
of Abraham Lincoln grows in luster as 
the years multiply, for these facts are 
splendid evidences thai our faith in the 
institutions of this republic, the faith 

wi had in • unassuming, rail-splitter 

president, was in no wise misplaced. 

You may not altogether understand 
tins pride, because neither your reason 
nor your imagination can picture to you 
the weary hardships the private soldier 
underwent in some of the unnecessarily 
cruel campaigns of thai war. I partici- 
pated in one of those campaigns with 




LEVEEETT P. CRUMB. 

\ i in\ of i he < !umberland when 11 

i time Btarted oul In three columns, 

numbering In all 1 m n. l saw- 
that .uiii'. when it was stretched along 
its line of march and appi ared like a 
black streak across the landscape, and 
hut ;i speck iii the Btreak; I saw 
i .hi aj • 'i for h.ii i h . and i saw it from 

.in emlne presenting .i grand spec- 

blvouai flres spread over 

■ M.ii i > until i hey acl ually s< emed 

to mingle with the stars. After the 

i, .itti.- of P< 1 1 -. villi flh Idi 'i 

tu pursui detacl n ti o1 thi retreal 

Ing >•! \ . and oui routi took us Into 

i in- , During 1 he 

rnonl h's ca mpalgn w< marched ovei 

■ lothed, i 1 1> fed, ami 

iv I thoul ten ti During thai march i 

..I u iik ii appa rent] r 1 han my 

Impl) wea i and die, so t hat 



I often asked myself: "Why should I 
be allowed to finish this march when 
hundreds of better men will he left by 
the wayside?" 

.It will not surprise you mat after 
that experience it was. and is. wonder- 
ful to me that I was destined Later to 
stand in the light of a setting sun face 
to face with our magnificent com- 
mander-in-chief, Abraham Lincoln; thai 
I was permitted to grasp with my hand 
the hand of the man we are here to 
honor; the hand that was deftly swayed 
by a softness of heart t'> stay executions 
in the camps of the irmy, with the 
apology "That dead men made poor sol- 
diers;" the hand that knew, as did no 
othi r, how to write consolation tn moth- 
ers who gave their sons t" thi 
the Union; the hand thai in the lan- 
of the ii". t. "bore a nation in its 
hold;" the hand thai made for 
an everlasting place in history by sign- 
ing the Emancipation Proclamation! 

Why. gentlemen, when I think how I 
saw the greal sturdy army of the West. 
the trained, disciplined army of the 
East, s:iw Sheridan's cavalry marching 
tn its list and greatesl achievement, 
saw the greal generals of those at 
viewed from a distance the last thunder- 
ous ca"nnonade of the war, saw thou- 
sands of defeated, disheartened Confed- 
erates marching from their surrendered 
cities towards thi ir desolated homes, and 
near the end stood in the presence of 
the Master Man, Abraham Lincoln, who 
was glorified by the results his patient 
perseverance had wrought with the aid 
of his grand armies and the just God 
to whom he prayed. --and then reflect 
that I am hen, and mil only here, but 
here in preside over a Lincoln society, 
my emotions are unspeakable. 

.lust one thoughl more. While I am 

one of the y uist of the old soldiers, 

none of them have lived more 
since the war than myself, and I am 
pai i Icularly proud t>> have lived to sei 
thai our comrades, whom we lefl under 
little, pathetic mounds of earth by the 
roadside, or just over the fence, or In 
the loneliness of the forest, whose 
forms fill several large national 
terles, and In the verj rem. it. 
God's acr.s lie beneath little replli 
the flag they loved, l am indeed proud 
to know i hal thi sacrifices I greater than 
you realize) of those valorous defend- 
ers of the Union and your homes, were 
n..t onlj nol in vain oul have been pro 
ductive of such magnlficenl results, and 
i i,at the nieiiii'i j "i the humbli si of 
i hem win be chi rlshed bj a prosperous 
and grateful pi ople \\ II h thai of the 
exalted Lincoln so long as this re- 
public lives; and I b'llieve as I pray. 

i hal ii"- republic as it was con 
■ i and dedicated to us by the great 
thai clustered a in mi I ; 
Washington, will endure with the gran- 



ite rocks of our old Dunderberg moun- 
tain, and that this republic will con- 
tinue to illumine the world just as, and 
as long as that historic Highland re- 
flects to this side of the noble Hudson 
the first beams of the morning sun. 

Gentlemen, my remarks may have par- 
taken of the sombre. There was an old, 
old command, "Let the dead bury the 
dead," and I ani reminded that, after all, 
we are not here so much to remember 
the dead as to glory in the results 
achieved by the man whose memory we 
are here to honor. There are speakers 
here who will remind you of those 
achievements, and I have tne pleasure 
of presenting to you, one who does not 
need an introduction, the Rev. Richard 
E. Bell. 

Rev. Richard E. Bell, pastor of St. 
Paul's M. E. Church, Peekskill, is well 
known to all our people and always 
in demand as an after dinner speaker. 

Rev. Mr. Bell's address, subject, "A 
Time Exposure," follows: 

It was a great Scotch preacher, whose 
name is world-wide so far as Christen- 
dom is concerned who was once asked 
the best possible way in which to pre- 
pare and afterward to deliver a dis- 
course, and he said to the young man 
who made the inquiry: "The best way 
to do it is to fill yourself full with the 
subject during the week and then go 
into the pulpit on Sunday and let nature 
caper." (Laughter.) Now I suppose 
that would be a first rate thing for the 
preacher or the speaker, whoever he 
might be. however difficult or hard it 
might be on the listener. I will not at- 
tempt to do that, though I confess to 
you that for some days past I have been 
reading and re-reading the life of this 
great man to whom reference has been 
so fittingly and beautifully made al- 
ready by the president of this organiza- 
tion. I sympathize very deeply with the 
sentiment expressed at another gather- 
ing of this character that I attended this 
afternoon in connection with one of the 
educational institutions of our village, 
that this is a religious day; for the man 
we recognize and honor in this gather- 
ing to-night was not only a statesman, 
not only the leader of the people, not 
only a chieftain in politics, but a very 
devout man. a Christian man in the 
broadest possible sense of that particu- 
lar term. 

I think it is illustrated in the life of 
America, as indeed in all history gen- 
erally, that in the development of the 
characters, whether of nations or indi- 
viduals, the process of progress is from 
habits to faculties and from faculties 
to ability. In this country of ours, 
which in a single generation tamed a 
continent, there have been developed cer- 
tain habits, at least two of which it is 



the tendency of European life to keep 
rudimentary and inert: on the one hand 
there is the power of spontaneous in- 
dividual initiative, on the other hand 
there is the ability to organize quickly, 
compactly and effectively. Now in both 
of these it seems to me, as I read our 
history and observe history making, 
there is scarcely a parallel to the Ameri- 
can character except it be found in the 
ancient Hebrews under and at the time 
of the Judges or perhaps among the 
Athenians under the constitution of So- 
lon. What I mean can be illustrated 
from history: I am a great lover of his- 
tory and spend a good many days and 
hours reading the life and the character 
of men that have influenced the world's 
history. Take, for instance, the illus- 
tration of the thought just advanced as 
set forth in the siege, I suppose it might 
be called, of New Orleans under General 




REV. RICHARD E. BELL, 

Jackson. Now at that particular in- 
stance in the life of that man he rep- 
resented in himself all the power to 
command obedience that had been illus- 
trated in the centuries that had gone 
by the great generals Caesar and Na- 
poleon; but there was this difference — 
and it was a great difference — between 
his men and the men under the command 
of those famous men of long ago, as 
the men before New Orleans lay every 
rifleman by the side of his fellow sol- 
diers in the rifle pits and behind the 
breast-works and watched for the whites 



of the eyes of the enemy there, every 
man was his own moral master just as 
much as If he had been anywhere along 
the great .Mississippi in its vast forests 
a hundred miles from the dwelling place 
of any citizen. Now it was that per- 
or individual initiative that these 
men, soldiers In the long ago, had de- 
veloped year after year and then had 
united one to the other and found that 
in that union their effort was illustrated 
best in their great commander that 
really gave him, Jackson, all the real 
authority that he had at that particular 
■ incture, or indeed at any other crisis 
of the conflict in which he was engaged. 
As it was with Jackson, so it was with 




JAMES K. APGAE. 

Abraham Lincoln, for he was the legi- 
timate successor of Jackson. Jackson 
was the first great leader raised up from 
1 '" ^mi rican masses, the first man In 
the hist • his countrj to repr< sent 

the popular sentiment, and thi refore I 
»aj Lincoln, r< presenting the same b< n 
tlment, lifted int.. conspicuousness from 
the ranks of the pi ople, was the legltl- 
of Jackson. Now Am- 
i i lc in i. adi i - in. i ■. be born, but 
b( ni.,. i. ah o, and unless th< 

'" ■""'• mad< '"■ thi i le and imi 

i" "id. are able to 

undert land th. m th< i ar Impulse, 

' ■ .it i. ad< or thi time 

1 they ma eat ts ami 

'•'•''"i ■ and :-i. ,1 philosopher) ol 

■ • ' dim- .,:■. I,,, | ||i. \ u III m 

from i heir ,,w n i ,,i 



or any reward other than the reward of 
th.- unrepresentative. Lincoln was rep- 
resentative of his time, Lincoln was rep- 
resentative of tin- dominant idea of his 
time, and what was that idea? Of 
course we all know that it was the Idea 
of personal liberty. Prom the time of 
Voltaire mi down t . > Jefferson, from the 
time of the American and French revo- 
lutionists to the .lay of tin- English 
Whiles and philanthropists, there had 
been growing steadily and surely with 
the years tin- hi, -a of the inalienable 
right of every man to the control nf his 
own self, until that idea hurst forth in 
such characters as John Brown, modified 

not a little "I' c se. in such men as 

Wendell Phillips and William Lloyd 
Garrison, hut finding its finest and fin- 
ished product in the man whom we de- 
light to honor on this occasion. Abraham 
Lincoln. (Applause.) Thoroughly sane. 
deeply serious, given as very few men 
have been given in the history of the 
world what we .-all good nature, discip- 
lined and chastened by continuous 
mental Struggles, by contradictions in 
his own family and in public lit' 
ever sweet tempered, ever kind, he came 
to be th.- greatest leader of his time 

and oi f the most skilful political 

leadi is of modern days. I am nol a 
political economist, hut I do not believe 
that tlnre is any other man in the his- 
tory of this country that compares with 
Lincoln favorably as a political leader 
and organizer except it be Thomas Jef- 
ferson himself. Springing of course as 
\\, all know from tin- lowest and least 
educated of the people, nursed in a hunt- 
er's shack, with a clay floor, and his bed 

suspended from slakes that were driven 

into that clay, this man early experi- 

enced all the humiliat ions ami all the 

restraints of self love that cam.- finally 
to make him a man with a splendidly 
equipped Individuality, hut with a fool- 
ish egotism actually under his command. 
Some of you will remember that in 
his essaj "n German literature. Carlyle 
says something like this, and Carlyle 
was not a Democrat in his thought or 
in his teachings: "There is a .livin. id, a 
pervading th.- visible universe, which 
visible universe is its Bymbol and Ben- 
Bible manifestation, it having in itself 
no meaning and indeed no true existence 

w Ithoul it." Th.n he goes on to sa \ 

that to the mass of men that divin. id, a 

is hidden, and yet t.> discern it. to seize 
it. to li\ e fulls in it. is the condition of 
all virtue and knowledge and freedom 
and the end therefore of all spiritual .n 

deavor in everj age. I do not know 

u hei hi r \ on win agree with me. hut 
l think that in th,- words of that great 
i it, i ., i \ master w< have a principle by 
t,, explain the .out inuous Influ- 
ence and act i\ it \ ol \ hi ah. in, Lincoln 
.a of anj other great man that has 
i t he world \\e never can judge 



men accurately by standing close to 
them, whether they be little or large. 
If they are large men, such as was 
Abraham Lincoln, we are entirely too 
near them to get a full and accurate 
view of them. If they are little men 
that have been simply lifted into con- 
spicuousness by their position we must 
needs wait until they stand at a dis- 
tance to get their true perspective. And 
yet is it not true that the clods that 
fall upon the graves of the vast ma- 
jority of men end their public career 
so far as this world is concerned. Only 
now and then some great man appears 
among us so collosal in mind and in 
heart that he refuses to die. You can 
not lock him in any tomb made by hu- 
man hands, his influence and his life 
work persist throughout the ages. Well 
indeed has some one sung of such men: 
"They live again in minds made better 
by their presence, in deeds of daring, 
rectitude, in thoughts sublime that 
pierce the night like stars, and with 
their mild persistence urge men's search 
to vaster issues." Such a man was 
Abraham Lincoln. There is no other 
method of analysis in which I have been 
instructed by which you can determine 
the power of accomplishment of this 
man that has won as he has won the 
favor of the years. Perhaps this is a 
good place to say, certainly it is a good 
time to hear, that there is at least one 
fact and factor with which we men have 
to deal that can neither be cajoled nor 
bribed, and that is time. When the ages 
contribute to the perpetuity of a man's 
life and influence, it goes without the 
further saying that that man is bigger 
than his time. When the investment 
of a man's life does not diminish with 
his age, but increases in its annual re- 
turns as the ages pass, when his life 
work was of such a character that the 
years can not blot out his name, then 
it is worth while for us, with regard to 
the study of the character of such men, 
to observe ihe sign that they sometimes 
put at a railway crossing: "Stop, Look, 
Listen." This we may well do with re- 
gard to this great character, Abraham 
Lincoln. But it takes what I have 
chosen to call upon the card here, "a 
time exposure" for men to get the full 
view or even a correct view of men and 
of their lives. Over there in that land 
that was represented by two men who 
sat at yonder table a little while ago 
many years ago there lived a worthy 
character, Giordano Bruno, a lover of 
his kind, a lover of letters, a lover of 
the sunny land of Italy; yet that man 
with the love of his nation and his land 
at heart found no place in all his loved 
land from which he could teach his peo- 
ple. They pursued and persecuted him 
from city to city and finally crowded 
him into the great Eternal City, as it 
is called, into an imprisonment of seven 



or eight months; then they dragged him 
into one of the squares of the city be- 
fore a frenzied mob, and out of that 
frenzied mob there were willing hands 
to bring and pile about him the fagots; 
there were other willing hands to touch 
the torch to the fagots, and from that 
place there went up like Elijah of old 
the redeemed spirit of Bruno. But four 
hundred years afterward — that was a 
long time exposure — four hundred years 
afterward, in the very generation in 
which we live, the sons or successors of 
the men who murdered Bruno found as 
near as they could the very spot upon 




ALLAN L. SUTTON. 

which he was murdered and there they 
have erected a graceful column that 
tells to the modern Italy and the young 
ftalians something of the story of that 
great man Bruno. I think it is a safe 
saying that no man in all history has 
so grown in the favor and estimation of 
the civilized world as has Abraham Lin- 
coln in the fifty years, or nearly that, 
since he was assassinated. It took 400 
years for the people of Italy to dis- 
cover and then to express their rev- 
erence and honor for Giordano Bruno; 
but in less than fifty years the assas- 
sin's bullet in the case of Lincoln has 
been converted into as many monuments 
of affection as there are human hearts 
throughout the civilized world. 

How are you going to account for the 
continued and indeed increasing influence 
of this man? How are you going to ex- 
plain the intangible, impalpable, anu yet 
very real influence that we all feel about 



10 



J recurrence of the anniver- 
sary nt' the birth of this character that 

ill by the name of Abraham Lin- 
Coln? You can not explain it by his 
si itesmanship. He was a statesman, I 
!i aware of that, but I am equal ly 
•\ ill aware that in the skilful manipula- 
tion of statecraft) In the expounding of 
the structure and functions of govern- 
ment, in- was far excelled by Alexander 
Hamilton. You can not explain his in- 
by his oratory. We arc all well 
aware that Lincoln stands well to the 
front in the line of the great orators 
produced by our American republic, and 
yet we know very well that he never 

■ l the magnetic power of oratory 
easily and always maintained by the 




ALZAMORE H. CLARK. 

great WebBter. Nor can you explain his 

Influence by what people generally call 

his boundless good sense, or common 

Hi had 1 hat, and we are 

t'ni ihat he had it ; it relieved thi 
burdens of the man's soul many a time; 

v it sa\ e.i 1 1,,- u.it Ion at some one 
■ - ; i. in . \ . ii iii t he ni.it 
imon Bense hi was possibly 
equal led by 

'niii l'i aid. I in \. ■• , \ 

plain I i Inuous and Ini 

Ing Influem di vol Ion to th< ■ 

oi then were other men 

\\ . ndall Phillips and 

William Lloyd ■ who did moi e 

ih, in Lincoln to awaken and dlrecl and 

ii/.. tie moral com Id Ion of thi 



people with regard to the liberation of 
the slave. Nor can you explain this 
man's influence by the fact that he was 
president of these United States during 
the must troubled period of our national 
history. It would not be a safe state- 
ment to say that Abraham Lincoln in 
every particular was the greatest man 
born or influencing this nation between 
the years 1809 and 1865. JTou must look 
deeper than the man's words, you must 
look deeper than his deeds, deeper than 
his position, if you will know the secret 
of tin- Influence, the undying infiui 
of this great president and greater man. 
Again 1 return to that sentiment from 
the great literary character quoted and 
( say to you that for myself at least. 
and therefore T commend it to the judg- 
ment of my fellow men. the explana- 
tion of the continued and increasing In- 
fluence of this man was simply this: he 
discovered, he seized upon, he lived 
wholly in the dominant idea of his age, 
the divine Idea then prevading the his- 
tory of this country. Now I care not 
in what age he may live or in what 
country, any man who discovers the pre- 
vailing divine idea in his particular 
time and gives himself to it will make 
himself known to the end of time. 

'fake, for instance, the continued in- 
in the world's speculative 
thought of Plato Plato in his time ,iis- 
covered what he believed to be the di- 
vine icha in the line of thought, to 
which he gave himself, the function of 
philosophy tO interpret life, a::. I for 
twenty-five centuries men in that de- 

partmi nl of tie- woi id's thought have al- 
iii,, si worshipped the name of Plato. 
Copernicus, in his time, discovered what 

he believed to be tl)e diville idea ill t lie 

universe, iii the constellations above his 
and thenceforth until this day and 

l ,,, conf InUOUS J ears her, after will 

the morning stars sing together they 
magnify t he glory of the gfeal as I 
iiier. Charles Darwin, born In the same 

in the sani, month and on the 

sain, daj of the i ith as Abraham Lin- 
coln, discv ered the -l i\ Ine idea, at hast 
to him, In that theory of evolution 
associated with his name; thai method 
of en it Ion :is he understood it and 
taughl it . and from thai day until this 
n. , mr. I,\ its povv.rs and its works 

makes perfume and music to the name 

and to t he honor Of the name of Charles 

,1 Now Abraham i >li In was nol 

a philosopher. Abraham Lincoln was not 
Interested espi daily In the astronomy 
of the universe; Abraham i .lncoln « as 

ted In SCli nl Iflc botany; Abra- 
ham Lincoln was Inti rested in men, 
w ithout regard to n r color or pre- 

v ioiis condition of Bl I \ Itude, and I 

l,,i , his future Is Bl cure The univ i rsl 

ties Of the land and Of Oth( r civ Hi/., d 

will oare for the future history 
of Plato; the gr< al obai rvatorles con- 



11 



nected with such institutions will care 
for the future name of the great as- 
tronomer; wherever scientific men are 
interested in the discovery of other and 
newer laws of nature, or the application 
of them to modern*'Tndustries, there tin- 
name of Charles Darwin will be honored; 
but wherever humanity is struggling, 
suffering, despairing, triumphing human- 
ity, there Abraham Lincoln will be en- 
shrined forever in human hearts. 

Men once the slaves of petty kings 
beyond the waters, and later the slaves 
of human masters in Christian America, 
but slaves, as was said by the president 
of this organization a few months ago, 
until by the stroke of his pen Abraham 
Lincoln made them free men, will ever 
lift their dusky faces in gratitude, not 
only to God, but to God's man who was 
their redeemer under His direction. 
Soldiers, like the president of this or- 
ganization again, who wore the blue, sol- 
diers, too, who wore the gray, more of 
whom to-day walk the hills of light than 
press their wearied feet upon the fields 
of the conflict in the great South land, 
have learned by the time exposure of 
fifty years or less that there was room 
enough in the heart of the great com- 
moner for the good and the great and 
the noble on both sides of the conllict, 
and all have learned to think of him as 
their great commander-in-chief; and it 
was because he gave himself to the dom- 
inant idea of his time, to the central 
current of our national life in his period. 
I do not know what the future of our 
country may be, but I believe most 
heartily and have the utmost confidence 
that whatever be the future of our coun- 
try as it moves on to the fulfilment of 
its high destiny under the blessing and 
guidance of Almighty God, we shall be 
directed, as were the Hebrews of old, 
by the pillar of cloud by day and of 
Are by night, in the influence of the 
great Westerner. However great our 
nation becomes as a power among the 
nations of the earth, however great be- 
comes our commerce, however strong the 
influence of our nation to effect among 
the nations of the earth international 
peace and universal unity, the stronger, 
the wider, the firmer becomes the hold 
of this great man upon our nation, yes, 
and upon all civilized nations; this great 
man, who in his life gave his chief en- 
deavor to unifying and organizing a di- 
vided people, and in his death left a 
legacy so tender and beautiful and full 
of sacrifice that it has bound together 
in bands of undying love the otherwise 
dissevered and separated members of our 
national household. 

Hon. James K. Apgar then addressed 
the chair and stated that Thomas Nel- 
son, Jr., had in his possession a letter 
from Abraham Lincoln. Some years 



ago Thomas Nelson, Sr., after having 
attended one of these Lincoln dinners, 
stated that he had somewhere among 
his papers a letter from Lincoln. It 
was not known just then where it was. 
Since then it had been found by Thos. 
Nelson, Jr., and it was believed that 
the gentlemen present would like to 
hear it read. 

President Anderson then called upon 
Mr. Nelson, who, with a few prelimi- 
nary explanatory remarks, read the 
letter from Mr. Lincoln to Hon. Wm. 
Nelson and the latter's reply. 




THOMAS KELSON, JR. 

The next speaker introduced was 
the Hon. Richard E. Connell, editor of 
the Daily News-Press of Poughkeepsie, 
the leading morning Democratic daily 
newspaper of the Hudson River val- 
ley. He is much in demand as a pub- 
lic speaker, and at the last general 
election had the distinction of defeat- 
ing for the office of congressman Hon. 
Hamilton Fish, who sought re-elec- 
tion but was beaten by Mr. Connell 
by over 600 plurality. 

On arising Congressman Connell se- 



12 



cured a laugh by a good story on the 
Irishman who when he was taken to 
a hospital was asked which ward he 
preferred replied with characteristic 
humor that he "did not care which 
ward it be so long as it be safely 
Dimocratic." He also told a negro 
dialect story which aroused the risi- 
bilities of his audience. 

Then the speaker launched into his 
address of the evening. "The Sons of 
the Republic," and spoke in part as 
I nl lows: 




HON. RICHARD E. CONNELL, 

it you ai i. m< tor what i am must 
thankful In tl I ol Abraham Lin- 
coln, i answer, the fact that he is n 

Mlc 

ou ask me what th< real 

.m. Hi in tl,. I... i ..i tin- Ri public, 

i ct that It i luced A.bra 

ham I . i 1 1 • . 1 1 ii . 

I then bl a 1 1 \ I h i 1 1 : : 

In iii. fact of this 
i :. public, i ini •■•• ei that it is to bi 



found in the certainty that in every 
crisis in its development, in every dan- 
ger to its honor, or its life, it always 
did, and it always will, produce a son, 
who, like Abraham Lincoln, will throw 
his giant figure between his country's 
Institutions and any force, be it assail- 
ant from without, or treason from with- 
in, thai may beset them. 

A biographer of Lincoln has this to 
say: "Therefore, there need be no fear 
that, iii 111 " the anniversaries of Lincoln's 
birth and death, nothing can be said of 
him which has not hen uttered i- 
Then will always be new suggestions, 
new revelations, new understandings, for 
.>t" such capacity was the quality of his 
intellect and soul." 

Lincoln is not different from other 
great men, so far as his place in his- 
tory is safe, or otherwise, from the dan- 
ger of hero worship. Tt may be well, in 
the presi nc< of such a transci ndenl 
acter as Lincoln, to fai opeful 

truth that, great as he was. thi 
public did not in producing him lose 
its capacity for rearing great sons, nor 
did a single avenue along which Lin- 
coln walked from the depths of ob 

ity to tii" tntain peak of fami . 

forever when he di< d. 

in ..ii.. of the novels which treats of 
gathering forces of the American 
Revolution, the daughter of an aristo- 
cratic family is mad.- to say to her lover 
that she must visit the Old World, if sin- 
is ever to meet anybody worth while. 
The lover answers in effect in one of 
those potent lim s thai could happen In 
no other literature but ours. "Walt, 
and sooner than you think there w.ll be 
any number of great men in our coun- 
try whom it will l"- well worth while to 
know and to mi • t. This was t"..- writer's 
way of Interpreting the possibilities of 
that form of government which was then 
crystalizing under the eyes of many a 
wiser person than a society-loving girl, 
and understood it not. 

ii. was t hinklng of the Adamses, the 
Jeffersons, the Washlngtons, the Henrys, 
the Lei b, and ol her families who gave 
i.. liberty that galaxy of suns whose 
na in. a shin.' out In the story of the 
American Revolul Ion 

And si. w hi ii. \ . r I think nt" Lincoln it 
is with the hope that we may ever be 
• . ..tit.nipl.it.- his greatness with- 
out r. ellng that should there com* t.> 
our Republic a crisis like unto the <>n.- 
which gave us this Saviour of the Union, 
t here would be i In, for 

it is in its sens, their character and 
their capacity that the Republic haa 
promise of Its perpetuity. 

I am to speak to-night on the topic, 

••s.ins of t he i;. public," and ir t am 

to It, it is not because 

thi Ri public is oi evei hai bei n, short 

worth talking about. When the 

ling patriot- 



13 



made up their minds to break away from 
the mother country there was a dispo- 
sition beyond the sea to laugh at their 
prehensions. It took eight years of war 
to write in the annals of freedom the 
illustrious names of America's sons 
whose monument is our country and 
whose glory is our inheritance. These 
patriots came down from tl a hills, up 
from the fields, out of t e homes of 
wealth, from the cottages of poverty and 
"from every Middlesex, village and 
farm," for in God's plan Democracy was 
to be thus established, in order that it 
might present to the world a country of 
equal opportunity, where simple man- 
hood is the passport to success, and 
where snobbery is but a libel upon 
true life. 

Again, when civil war had called tre- 
mendous armies to the field, the soldiers 
of the Old World, who were military stu- 




PEBLEY H. MASON. 

dents by profession, and commanders by 
inheritance, looked incredulously upon 
the possibility of great generals appear- 
ing amid such conditions. As they 
looked they beheld a soldier fit to be 
named with Napoleon, a general not 
to be surpassed, in point of success, 
in history; and they saw him come 
from obscurity so great that it marked 
him a failure at the age of forty, but 
who, in the Republic's crisis, took com- 
mand of its armies and saved its insti- 
tutions. 

Speaking of sons of the Republic, con- 
template two of them as they must have 



appeared to the crown heads, the scions 
of royalty, the princes, dukes and earls, 
who from their governmental and fam- 
ily heights looked upon the struggle go- 
ing on here between the North and the 
South back in 1864. These two were 
Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson. 
There they were, put forth in the midst 
of a conflict in which a nation, with its 
destinies, with its possibilities and its 
flag was involved. The first, a rugged 
product of a log cabin in the Kentucky 
woods: the other the development of an 
obscure tailor in Tennessee who could 
neither read nor write until taught to 
do so by his wife after he had become 
of age. The first had learned to read 
and write a little earlier in life, but his 
school was his cabin log fire, his library 
his borrowed books, and his university 
the frontier and the Mississippi River. 
Fancy the professors, with the accumu- 
lated learning of centuries behind them, 
and in them contemplating this promis- 
ing pair, put forth to interpret constitu- 
tions, manage great armies and rescue 
freedom's institutions from the peril of 
rebellion! 

Ah, glorious sons of the Republic, chil- 
dren of real democracy, you were never 
lacking, nor will you ever be, when this 
country, whose boast is her motherhood 
of patriots, shall need her sons for the 
conflicts of war or the conquests of 
peace. 

Such is the nature of our Republic 
that its calamities, through the patri- 
otism of its sons, and the beauteous 
bravery of its daughters, contribute to 
its greatness three of our Presidents, 
who were perhaps the most typical sons 
of the Republic in our list of chief ex- 
ecutive, were assassinated. Lincoln died 
on the first occasion on which he felt 
that he could seek surcease from care, 
because the Union was saved at last. 
Men's passions were at flood tide and 
the hatred of war rankled in a million 
hearts. The smoke of battle, the scat- 
tering ashes of desolation, the sighs of 
the dying sons of the Republic were still 
in the atmosphere when the bullet of the 
murderer reached the emancipator. In- 
stantly as if that wicked bullet had been 
transformed into a touch of the finger of 
God, the sons of the Republic involun- 
tarily stood closer together as they wept 
for his fall. What a million bullets fired 
in the war had not accomplished the 
shot which ended Lincoln's life set in 
motion the forces which were to bring 
together American brothers who had 
been divided. 

When the first waves of rebellion were 
breaking at his feet and a war in which 
an ocean of blood should flow to the con- 
secration of many a field of the Union 
was in sight, it was Lincoln who said: 
"We are not enemies but friends. We 
must not be enemies. Though passion 
may have strained, it must not break 



u 



Our bonds of affection. The mystic 
chords of memory, stretching from 
every battlefield and patriot grave to 
every living heart and hearthstone all 
over this broad land, will yet swell the 
chorus of the Union when again touched, 
as Burely they will be, by the better an- 
gels of our nature." 

Ali! great son of the Republic, dying 
chieftain of a chastened but preserved 
Union, the attack upon your life touched 
the "mystic chord" that gave to every 
American heart and conscience a new 
birth of resolution to gel together for 
the future, forgetting the unhappy past 
— a past thai had cost us. all! so much, 
even to your untimely death! 

Let me say, as we stand to-night in 
inited country that the final chord 
in that music <>f the Union which sweet- 
ened Lincoln's life, has been touched by 
the present successor of Lincoln. This 
was don, when President Taft elevated 
to the Chief Justiceship of tie' Supreme 
Court of the United States, one who had 
marched with his brothers in the Con- 
federate Army and who had turned from 
the conflict to t'aee with his brethren as 
noble and heroic a task as any people 
ever knew on this earth, that of com- 
ing through reconstruction to the solu- 
tion of the problem, and whose appoint- 
ment at this time marks the final extin- 
guishment of tlie last ember of possible 
seei iuiiai difference in our land. 

In the career of James a. Garfield, 
from tin- towpath of a canal through the 
years of the Civil War. distinction In 
Congress ami election to tin- Presidency 
there is Inspiration. When, prompted by 
insanity, a murderer struck htm down, 
ricans put aside tin- polit- 
ical passions of the time, and no s ier 

hid the news of the assault upon the 

President reacher every corner of the 
Republic than we beheld a whole na- 
tion, regardless of all the differences 
Incident to life, mingling their tears in 
sorrow and renewing their devotion to 

tin- Republic Whose son had fallen at the 
threshold of the I 'residency . 

Speaking of tin- death of Garfield, 
James <'. Blaine coined into living phrase 

that which was in every American heart 
when he said. "Lei us think that his 

dying eyes read a mystic meaning which 
only the rapt and parting bouI may know. 
I., t ue believe t hat in the Bilence of the 

r< linu- w mi id in- in a id' wave 

breaking on a farthei shore and fell al- 

i upon ills waste, i i,r,,\v tin- breath 

Of t he I ti i mil ruing." 

' i i \ pic.ii sun ..I a Republic of equal 
opportunltj what a blessing rested upon 
thy bier! Poi it was the blessing of a 
united count ry upon the II ei vices 

i.r on< of Iti distinguished smis. 

Ami still of this Ri public 

• 1 1 to take his pis 

w 'imsi llvi i. i iii, -eii to the 

id, ,i mteii, ,1 of t he 



country's enemies'. Tf there was fear [n 
the land that anarchy might seek Its 
sway, the death inflicted upon the gen- 
tle McKlnley aroused this nation to a 
united brotherhood which at once made 
impossible the spread of that hateful 
doctrine. Like Lincoln and Garfield, Mc- 
Kinley walked out from the mass of hif» 
countrymen to take his place on the 
firing line of the Republic and by Ids 
bravery, his lofty patriotism and his 
beautiful life to become an example 
among the public men of his country 
and of his time. 

Every note of difference that chanced 
to be echoing anywhere in tin- Republic 




HUGH J. McGOWAN. 

was silenced as in grief and teari 
American people gathered to deplore the 
end of so beloved a sun as William Mc 
Kinley. I sometimes think that there 
was at bast some of the depth of feel 

Ing which was in every American heart 

at that ti in these modest lines: 

Near two little mounds at Canton 

\t l.st till the judgment day, 

Ashep with his lit i h- children 
As if wears- of work, of play. 

\\ . bill him good b\ ,• for. \ , r 
As back to tie st rife w I 

i i.e.. u , , i ,,i , t he \ ens with children 

( »nly the bless, ,1 Kn..w ' 
The king In bis tomb of marble. 

i n- high in the bail of fame, 
Ma >■ sei in to r< st in grandeur 
Which trappings ami stones pro* I 



IB 



But sweeter the grave at Canton, 
Where rests our beloved to-day, 

Asleep with his little children, 
At rest till the judgment day. 

Lest we be led to imagine that the 
•conditions which Lincoln conquered 
would be fatal in our time, we might 
look at just one other son of the Re- 
public whose experience carries out the 
best hope of this form of government. 
Some years ago two Swedish immigrants, 
penniless and friendless, took up life in 
Minnesota. The father failed in every 
way possible for a worthless man to fail. 
The only inheritance which he left his 




GEO. E. BRIGGS. 

son was the appalling fact that his fa- 
ther had been the village drunkard and 
had died in the poorhouse. The son 
helped his mother through many years 
of struggle and, I doubt not, many a day 
of scanty living. Plunging into me bat- 
tle of life, in the only country where 
a man has equal chance in that battle, 
this boy came to one day find himself 
nominated for Governor of the State of 
Minnesota. His opponent, one of those 
accidental snobs in American politics 
who sometimes rises to the crest of the 
wave, announced that it was a pity that 



the son of such conditions should be 
nominated for the high office of Governor 
against one so blue-blooded as himself. 
The mere statement of this issue was 
enough. The American people compos- 
ing the State of Minnesota did the rest, 
and three times they elevated to the Gov- 
ernorship John A. Johnson. 

It was Lincoln who said, "All that 1 
am, all that I hope to be I owe to my 
angel mother." 

And so it happened that only the other 
day there was a great funeral at St. Paul. 
The body of the great Governor of Min- 
nesota lay in state while thousands of 
people passed in respect and grief to 
look upon his silent face. It was the 
boy who in the village of St. Peter 
had been known as the son of the vil- 
lage vagabond and who toiled with his 
mother through the years of her hard- 
ship, self-denial and penury; who had 
grown to splendid manhood in an Amer- 
ican State, and because of whose death 
a whole nation mourned. And the re- 
ports of the funeral concluded thus: 
"And they took him to the little grave- 
yard near the village of St. Peter, and 
there they buried him beside his mother, 
so that 'in death' they who had clung 
so closely to each other through an 
ocean of poverty and sorrow 'were not 
divided'." 

On this, the anniversary of Abraham 
Lincoln, it is Well to couple with his 
memory the names of other illustrious 
sons of the Republican. America has 
her great sons in war and in peace. The 
wins which carry thought around the 
globe, over the land and under the 
ocean literally sparkle with American 
genius. And so wherever we turn we 
behold the sons of our Republic so liv- 
ing and so achieving as to be worthy of 
their mother. So may it ever be. 

He closed his address with a mag- 
nificent peroration, an apostrophe to 
the American flag. 

The next address, "Reflections from 
the Life of Abraham Lincoln," was by 
Hon. Merton E. Lewis, of Rochester, 
N. Y., who was a State Senator at Al- 
bany from Monroe County for a num- 
ber of years. 

Senator Lewis referred to the elo- 
quence of the two speakers who pre- 
ceded him and apologized for what he 
might have to say following two such 
gifted orators. He said that he came 
from the banks of the Genesee to the 
banks of the Hudson, and as the lordly 
Hudson was greater than the humble 
Genesee so the addresses thus far of 
the evening surpassed any feeble ef- 
fort he might make. Senator Lewis 



16 



then continued, as follows: 

I esteem it a great honor to be asked 
to your dinner and an even greatei 
to be asked to speak. As I look over tin- 
list of honorary members of your organ- 
ization and find thai each has at some 
previous occasion like this addressed you, 
I am impressed with the thought that 
the compliment is beyond my deserts and 
shrink from the task lest invidious com- 
parisons be drawn not to my advantage, 

Four splendid hospitality, however, 
sin mi id give confidence and Inspiration to 
discuss almost any subject, and when the 
subject is the life and character of the 
man in whose honor we are gathered to- 
r to-night, little else should be 
needed in the way of inspirat Ion. 

The fact of the matter is thai there is 
so much i" be said upon tb^e subjecl ; it 
has so many sides, so many view points, 
so many phases and angles, thai the 
danger is thai the available time will be 
fled. For thai reason and In order 
thai I may nol unwittingly trespass upon 
your patience, I have selected from the 
mass of what might well be said those 
things only which seems to me may best 
id at this time, and will carefully 
confine myself to my manuscript and 
thus conclude my remarks while yet 
some remain to listen. 

Abraha m Lincoln was a greal man. 
lie was a wise man. a human man. a 
patient, honest, God-fearing, deep-think- 
ing man. A man who weald not shirk a 
duty or dodge a responsibility. Some 

have said that he was tin- greatest man 
who ever lived. For myself I confess 
that I am helpless in the efforl to form 
an opinion. Tin- word "greatest" In- 
volves the idea id' comparison. My read- 
ing of history and literature has not dis- 
closed any character with whom he 
mighl appropriately he compan d. 

Certainly he was nol like Washington, 
■ a .1. fferson, or Hamilton, or Madison, 
or like anj of the fal hers of t in- Repub- 
the Constitution. A.dmirers of Au- 
di, w Jackson, Gen. < '.ruit and William 

McKlnley will tell you thai they were 
men. Bui will any of Buch admir- 
ers care t'> assert that tie greatness of 
any of them was like the greatness of 
l.ii In? Juliu Cromwell, Na- 

poleon, each in his way was a 
man Bui win it he cla Imed i hat any 

mi. of them was great in the sens.- thai 

i real ? 

N'. .11 lv the halt' id' a cut my has 

i since h. ceased to i.e. hut the 
advat - not swerved to 

dim lie- in i . i ch I e vemenl 

'i '! of 1 inn, .-aim refleel Ion, 

in ..i 1 1.. gi eat ■ \ ems 

with wh ich hi to eal, 

th. ol I which In- 1 1 a 1 1 to .. \ . i - 

come, the responsibilities which he was 

■ ■ III. -minus. I 11 

reaching, aw< Inspiring results which he 
accomplished, and which as we look 



hack and study the conditions which ex- 
isted we are convinced that only he could 
have accomplished, all, all of these I 
think force us to the conclusion that 
greatness such as was personified in 

him has nol i n known except in him. 

Abraham Lincoln was the mystery of 
the age in which he lived. Were any- 
one of the well known writers of fiction 
to attempt to weave into a romance the 
events, the actual every day events of 
the life of Abraham Lincoln, his hook 
would never find a publisher. The story 
would be too improbable to warrant the 
iii\.stnnnt in paper and ink for placing 
such a book upon the market. A rail- 




HON. MEETON E. LEWIS, 

splitter at twenty-one, the President of 
the United states and Commander-in- 
Chief of its army and navy at fifty two? 
"Impossible," the pui.iish.i- would say. 
No, not Impossible. History, nol fiction 

Abraham Lincoln pi >>\ , ,i t he fall 
the old adage that " \ Jack of all trades 

IS a master of none." At t w . nty-ouc he 
was a hOg-klller at 32 cuts. "2 and 6" 

per dav. At this particular kind of work 

in- is said to have been an expert. His 
nexl recorded employ nl was at rail- 
splitting. Tradll Ion has it that tor i ach 
tour hundred rails he spill he r< c< Ived 
ird of brown jean clol h. 

Nex1 h. was pilot on a llat hoat down 

the Mississippi River; then a clerK in 
tore, then a Bteamboal navi- 
gator 

W'h.n th. Black Hawk war Link,- out 
■ lain ol' tin- mill! i i \ 1 I. | 

the war he embarked In the business of 



17 



a grocer. In this enterprise he seems to 
have scored his only failure. He failed, 
failed completely, owing what must have 
seemed to him a very large sum of money 
at that time. There was no bankruptcy 
act on the statute books, but whether 
there was or not, he paid his debts — 
paid them all in full. 

He was postmaster at New Salem and 
combined with the regular duties of that 
position the duties of a letter carrier, 
carrying the letters for his patrons in 
his hat and delivering them as he met 
the persons to whom they were ad- 
dressed. The New Salem post office 
after a time ceased to exist, though 
not because of any fault of his, and 
he then entered upon the business of a 
land surveyor. 




WILBUR L. ELLIS. 

Very early in life Mr. Lincoln be- 
came imbued with the idea that he was 
intended to hold public office. He sought 
election to the Legislature and after one 
or two defeats was elected to that office. 
It does not appear that he had any scru- 
ples about office-seeking. Office-seeking 
was not regarded at that time with as 
much disfavor by the public as in these 
latter days. 

He left no record of achievement dur- 
ing his first term, and history records 
nothing of consequence during his sec- 
ond term, except that he and two others 
jumped from the legislative window in 
order to break a quorum and prevent the 
transaction of the public business. His 



chief purpose was to accomplish the di- 
vision of Sangamon County and change 
the capital of the State to Springfield. 

He was elected a Member of Congress, 
served one term and retired without hav- 
ing distinguished himself. He applied 
for and was refused the position of Com- 
missioner of the Land Office, but was 
offered the position of Governor of the 
Territory of Oregon, which he declined. 
So far as appears this is the only pub- 
lic office which he ever declined. 

He was a candidate for the office of 
United States Senator in 1855 and was 
defeated; a candidate for Vice-President 
on the ticket with Fremont in the first 
national Republican Convention in 1856 
and was defeated. 

In 185 8 he again sought election to the 
United States Senate and was again de- 
feated. It was during this latter cam- 
paign that he carried on with Stephen A. 
Douglas the joint debate in which he 
made for himself a reputation which if 
not national was at least more than lo- 
cal. The speeches which he made in the 
Douglas debates attracted the attention 
of the political leaders in the East and 
led to an invitation to visit and speak in 
some of the Eastern cities. 

When the Republican convention met 
at Chicago in 1860, he was known just 
well enough, and not too well to be an 
available candidate for the Presidency. 
He was not the first choice of a majority 
of the delegates, but he was less ob- 
jectionable to a majority than any other 
candidate and was nominated. In bring- 
ing about the nomination he had the as- 
sistance of capable and shrewd politi- 
cians who did not hesitate to promise 
cabinet positions in return for votes of 
delgates, although expressly forbidden by 
Mr. Lincoln so to do. 

The nomination was not particularly 
popular, and many of the leaders of the 
newly-born party were doubtful of suc- 
cess. Notwithstanding the lukewarm 
character of the support given by some 
of the party leaders, he must have been 
gratified by the fact that he actually re- 
ceived a majority of all the votes that 
were cast. 

I have sometimes wondered what 
might have been the consequences had he 
been defeated. 

The Southern States were openly de- 
claring at the time that his election 
would mean secession. In the North 
the abolitionists under the leadership 
of Wendell Philips, Owen Lovejoy and 
many other radical-minded men were de- 
claring that slavery must be abolished. 
Mr. Lincoln himself had frequently de- 
clared that slavery was a moral, social 
and political wrong, and that the country 
could not continue to exist half-slave and 
half-free. He had made this declaration 
in his debates with Douglas and in his 
Eastern speeches. It met with warm ap- 
proval from the abolitionists and aroused 



18 



violent condemnation in the South. 

Stephen A. Douglass was the candi- 
date of th'- Democratic party. In him- 
self he represented and typified a large 
body "i" voters who were desirous of 
compromising the South. He had always 
been a compromiser. Never had he taken 
any position which distinctly identified 
1 1 i in either with those who helieved in 
slavery and desired to see it perpetu- 
ated, or with those who condemned 
slavery and wished to see it abolished. 
His ambition was boundless. Never con- 
sciously or willingly did he take a posi- 
tion on any question which seemed likely 
to interfere with thai ambition. His was 
a pleasing personality. He was what is 
called a magnotie, man. an orator, de- 
bater ami rhetorician. It is not difficult 
to conceive thai in these times, aided by 
the power of the New York city news- 
papers and their "eel s" throughout the 

east, he might have won. in those days 
nun read less and thought more. They 
had net Learned I o take their political 
convictions ready made ami served to 
them red hut and under flaming red head 
lines, at the breakfasl table. The voters 
really had views of their own, views for 
which they were ready to fight, because 

they knew tliuse vieWS Were right. M e 1 1 

nol ashamed to be pari isans. They 
were partisans, fighting partisans, knew 

Jul; what they believed ami aide and Wil- 
ling to del', ad their principles in am. 
way that might he necessary. 

Tin- South was aggressive, blustering, 
threatening. The leaders were ambitious 
and determined. Tin creation of a new 
republic made up of slave states would, 
it seemed to them, settle the controv- 
ersies which had so long Berved to ,iis- 
turb the public mind, and with the slav- 
ery question settled, nothing, they felt. 
could obstruct the development of the 
South. 

The Southern states knew DOUglas to 

compromiser ami would have none 

of him. for that reason the Charleston 

ntion made up of delegates from 

Blave states, placed a tlckel in tin' field 

with John C Breckenridgi al its head. 

I lad Douglas been elected, the South 
would hav< made demands upon him 
which hi- would have been compelled by 

public opinion at tin- North to refuse. 

Then would have come secession, with 
a Presldeni at Washington, who had 
n . ■. • i denied the righl of the slave stati b 
cede, a nd w hose record was a 
m of compromises and attempts at 
compromises Would he have felt that 
in- had tie euust it ut lonal righl 

Ion? 1 1. oi 
in- attempted to do so. there would have 

hi • i fa Ith, a lack of 

confldi nee in tin- man i constanl fear 

of anot p. r compromise. I rse, 

men speculation, but 

such attempt al compromise would 
been madi and unllkel] thai an) 



thing substantial would have resulted 
from such attempts. 

History, so far as I know, furnishes 
no parallel to the situation which would 
probably have been created had Douglas 
defeated Lincoln in November 1S60. 

The right of secession having once 
been established and admitted, then 
might have been not only a southern con- 
federacy, but a New England confed- 
eracy, a Pacific confederacy, a North- 
west confederacy, and so on until noth- 
ing would have l n left of the United 

states of America but our own Em- 
pire state. We would never secede. 

What might have happened had Breck- 




JOHN SMITH, JR. 

enrldge i" en i Lected Is nol worth eon 
sidering, for the reason that he was at 
no time a formidable candidate, and was 
probably nominated by the Charleston 
Convention for the purpose of making 
Mr, Lincoln's election a certainty. 

it is difficult to express In words the 
magnitude of the task which confronted 
him when Mr. Lincoln was Inaugurated 

on March 1. 1861; and great as it must 

ii.iv e seemi d to him al that time, it 
eont Inued to gro\i and to I me more 

. \. more in\ olVI d. more t ■ 
as the mouths di aggl d by, It w as lu-c- 

eati an army, Th< re v. ai 
need of men. I lapable commanders wen 
m.t available, a large number of tin 
offici i ■ of 1 1" r< grular army resigned 
their commissions ami entered th, rebel 

army. Supplies and munitions of w . 1 1 
I ,,l P. ,n purposely dh < ■■ t' >d tO Southern 



19 



depots. Equipment of all sorts was 
needed to take the place of that which 
had been seized by the rebels and con- 
verted to their own use. There were 
dissensions among the people of the 
North, dissensions among the newspa- 
pers which had supported him in the 
campaign dissensions among the lead- 
ers of his party, dissensions among the 
members of his cabinet, dissensions 
among the generals of the army. He 
was called upon to meet assaults upon 
his character, his integrity of purpose, 
his ability to plan or execute. Personal 
abuse was heaped upon him. Shortly 
after he became President, one of the 
members of his cabinet even had the 
temerity to suggest to him in writing 
that the president turn over to him the 
cabinet officers, the actual control of 
public affairs and pledge himself in ad- 
vance to support and carry out the 
policy which such cabinet officers might 




CLIFFORD COUCH. 

determine to adopt. The need of money 
for the maintenance of the army was 
always pressing. 

The attitude of foreign nations was 
distinctly unfriendly. A navy had to 
be created and equipped. A blockade of 
Southern ports had to be declared and 
enforced. Many of those who had 
worked hardest for his election were 
among those who did most to embar- 
rass, obstruct and interfere with him 
in the performance of his duties. The 
New York Tribune with Horace Greely 



as its responsible editor, led in such 
assaults. The wicked, unwarranted and 
unfounded attacks, both in and outside 
of the columns of the Tribune were at 
the time and always remained a dis- 
grace to the paper and to the man re- 
sponsible for it. Greely and the Tribune 
were far from being alone; otner pa- 
pers and other public men and leaders 
of public thought contributed, to an ex- 
tent lessened only by their smaller abil- 
ities, to embarrass discredit and dis- 
courage the leader of the nation in the 
performance of the greatest task that 
ever fell to the lot of a human being. 

Defeats in the field of the armies of 
the Union, deaths, desertions and ex- 
pirations of terms of enlistment, made 
new enlistments necessary. When vol- 
untary enlistment ceased, drafts were 
resorted to. The drafts lead to riots. 
To the everlasting disgrace of this state, 
the governor then in office aided and en- 
couraged such resistence and failed in 
the performance of his duty in sup- 
pressing such riots. 

The war was declared to be a failure 
and organizations were formed in the 
North, which more or less openly un- 
dertook the task of aiding and assisting 
the enemies of the republic in armed 
rebellion. 

As a military necessity, the emancipa- 
tion proclamation was issued. This was 
effective in freeing the slaves of only 
those who were in armed resistance to 
the authority of the government. To 
make the proclamation fully effective, 
legislation was necessary and amend- 
ments to the Constitution were desir- 
able. Mr. Lincoln undertook to procure, 
and after much argument and effort, did 
procure the passage of such measures 
as he thought necessary. 

For four long years the struggle con- 
tinued. The President of the United 
States, backed by the common people, 
the people whom he knew and loved, 
and who knew and loved him main- 
tained the struggle against an enemy in 
arms, encouraged in its resistance by 
the governments of Europe; by a large 
and influential section of t..e people of 
the North. speaking through their 
newspapers, and even in the pulpit and 
upon the platform. Thousands of lives 
were given up that the nation might 
live; blood and treasure were expended 
in ever increasing quantities, given in 
large part cheerfully, freely and in the 
firm belief that he, who coming from 
the common people, had been exalted by 
them to a pinnacle, than which there 
is none higher, would finally succeed in 
his great task of crushing the rebellion 
and preserving the nation as one nation 
— one and inseparable. 

Under the guidance of Him to whom 
he constantly looked for guidance, this 
man finally triumphed. Richmond was 
evacuated and the war was over. And 
then on that fateful night in April, 1865, 



20 



when victory had been won and success 
was assured, when criticism upon the 
conduct of the war was stilled this 
man. who for four years had been the 
chief In authority over more men and 
greater armies than had ever assembled 
under any Bag in any country of the 
world, was violently removed from the 
scene of his triumph and laid low by the 
bullet of the assassin. 

Lincoln died, but not until his work 
was done. 

During our national existence there 
have been raised up and exalted many 
men, men to whom the popular mind has 
credited qualities that were, in their 
way. admirable, and worthy of fame 
more lasting and national regard, more 
enduring than has been accorded to 
them. Every war In which the country 
has been engaged has produced its 
heroes, but our people have often proved 
themselves fickle, and ready and willing 
to toss aside the hero of yesterday for 
the hero of to-day. Popular as may 
have been the heroes of the Revolu- 
tionary War. the War of 1812, the Mexi- 
can War. the Civil War and the Spanish 
War, their fame was but temporary 
ethereal, ileeting. It melted away and 
was forgotten. In the hurry and ex- 
citement, the rush and hustle of life 
under prevailing modern conditions, 
fame to be lasting must have for its 
foundation something more substantial 
than the ability to sink a fleet or lead 
a charge, to write a letter or to make 
a speech. 

We may have our leaders, our or- 
ators, our professional cure-alls, our 
demagogues, our perambulating, side- 
stepping, blustering, condemning, rest- 
less, obstinate self-willed editors and 
teachers of new doctrines and new 
thought and new everything else. And 
for the time it may appear that the peo- 
ple have been convinced that the old 
Constitution is obsolete and worn out, 

and has eeased to 1 f service. Not SO. 

Do not fear. The man to whose memory 
we are here t" night to pay respect de- 
clared that it is Impossible to fool all 

the people all the time. ||e krieW. lle- 

cause he was id - the people, ore of them, 
I i he commom b1 of them. He 

kiow. 

Unfortunately, both Congressman 
Conni n and s< aator Lewis had to 

catch a train at 11.11, the former north 
for Poughkeepsle, the latter south for 

New York. Therefore Senator Lewis 
was som< wiiai turrit d. couid hardly do 
justice to his theme and al the \ i ry 

last was Compelled to "speed up." COn- 

olude his address quickly ami make a 

dasli al 11 ol for :i Carriage lO wailing. 
The last hut not the least spi aker 

of the evening was Dr, Arthur n El- 



liot, so well known in Peekskill. where 
he resided for a number of years. 
Dr. Elliott spoke as follows: 
After such a glittering demonstration 
of oratory as we have listened to this 
evening a few reminiscences of an ap- 
prentice hoy may sound very flat and 
out of place, but in myself I connect 
the city of .Manchester and the village 
of Peekskill in a very curious way. 
Thirty-six years ago I walked into this 
town to meet some of the best friends 
I have ever known. After I arrived 
hi re you had a celebration, a joyous 
time for you. but rather an unhappy time 
for an Knglishman to remember — 1S7R. 




DR ARTHUR H ELLIOT 

the celebration of the Independence of 
.hi thai occasion i had the good 
Fortune to listen to one of the brightest 
minds that ever spoke in an American 
pulpit, Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, who 
Borne of you older men may remember, 

gave (he oratl n that occasion ta 

I listened to him i remembered another 
occasion when I had heard him aboul 
i, n years i" fore; it \\ as in the greal 

Of Man. -h. Bter H Inn 1 was an ap 

ce boy . he undertook to Bpeab to ■ 

mot, of 6, people in flee Trade 1 [all. 

and gentlemen, i was one of the mob. 
fhti r l Bui it is difficult to daj 
to understand exactly the motives that 
act nat. d t he minds of Engllshm 
that time. Imagine a city of 8 
people whose principal business was to 



21 



take care of the spinning of cotton from 
90,000,000 spindles, at that time every 
spindle still, at that time families of 
six to eight people lining the street of 
Market and Deansgate in the city of 
Manchester starving; people who could 
not understand why you were so long 
settling this controversy, people whose 
bread and butter depended upon your 
cotton fields; and there landed into the 
midst of that starving people — and a 
hungry man lacks reason — Henry Ward 
Beecher; and I want to tell you some 
of the things he did. I have here a book 
with some of his speeches, and the burn- 
ing words he spoke to the Englishmen 
at that time. Just before that time, in 
1862, he was telling his own countrymen 




ALBERT E. FHIN. 

here things like this: "To-day there is 
mourning in the factories of England, 
there is famine in her streets, and the 
commercial classes are demanding that 
the ports of the South shall be opened." 
It was hunger that was driving the com- 
mercial interests to open your ports in 
the South. But Beecher continues: 
"There is no power even in hell, though 
you bring its worst monstrosities upon 
the earth, that for one moment will 
hinder or turn back this testimony: That 
God made man free." 

Xow he is speaking before he went 
to England, so you can see that he had 
become thoroughly enthused and warmed 
up to the spirit of his mission before 
he went. "I am moved to this," he says, 



"because it is the public sentiment of 
states and communities; I am but the 
mouthpiece of millions of men, and I 
say to those who say treachery and 
tyranny: Beware! God has come to 
judgment, but He has come to a judg- 
ment by which he will purify His peo- 
ple and make them a peculiar people, 
zealous of good works. We shall see a 
glorious union, we shall see a restored 
constitution" — how prophetic these 
words — -"we shall see a liberty in whose 
bright day Georgia and Masaschusetts 
will shake hands that shall never be 
separated again. Now there is fierce- 
ness and hatred, but there shall come 
fellowship and union that no foreign 
influence can break, no home trouble 
shall ever mar again. We shall live 
to see a better day." 

Now the mission that sent Mr. Beecher 
to Europe, according to the story, was 
a pleasure trip for the benefit of his 
health; and he says in one of his ad- 
dresses that he did not wish to talk to 
the English; that it was too trouble- 
some; he said: "No, I am going home 
in September, I do not want anything 
to do with England." It is the com- 
mon impression that Mr. Beecher went 
there for the special purpose of address- 
ing the English people, but those are 
his own words. There was an appeal 
made to him while he was there by what 
was called the Emancipation Society, and 
this is what they said to him: they told 
him that they had been called the off- 
scouring of the earth for taking part 
with the mob — what certain people had 
called those Englishmen who were 
working for emancipation — and they 
said: "If you do not heln us, we shall 
be overwhelmed. They will say: "Even 
your American friends despise you," and 
Beecher's generous heart responded, and 
you know the result. 

The English populace without votes, 
you must remember, is very powerful; 
and the populace had been warmed up 
by the Slave Holders' Association, and 
the association sought to bring action 
upon parliament by these mobs, and par- 
liament would have voted at any time 
for the South against the North, but 
they feared the populace. Now the Slave 
Holders' Association sought to win this 
populace; they had great men, but they 
did not have Henry Ward Beechers. The 
Emancipation men got hold of Henry 
Ward Beecher. Beecher was alone; 
Raymond, who was with him, left him 
early in the summer, and he says he 
was never so lonely in his life. The 
blood red placards looked formidable, 
his friends feared for him and they said 
so; but Beecher said: "Are you going 
to back down?" "No, but we didn't 
know how you would feel." "Well, you 
will find out how I feel pretty soon, I 
am going to be heard," and he was. 
W T hen he went on the stage at Manches- 
ter it was practically impossible to hear 



22 



anything or to see anything; he had a 
great many missiles thrown at him, but 
after a while he got started. As near 
as I can remember the words — I can not 
quote them exactly — he said something 
Like this: "] have always heard Eng- 
lishmen admired for their love of fair 
play; you have had your inning, now let 
m>- have mine." And they listened to 
him for about ten or fifteen minutes. 
Then In- was interrupted from time t<> 
time. It is very difficult for me to tell 
you all the things that happened aboul 
that time and it is so late now I will 
not attempt to do so; but it is interest- 
ing to recall some of the things that 
were said. A great many men were in- 
vited to attend the meetings by t lie pla- 
cards 10 give him what was called "a 
disgusting reception;" this was public 
print all over town, blood red letters. 
One of Beecher's remarks at the meet- 
ing was: "Here I am before you willing 
to tell you what 1 think of England and 
every person in it." That sounds thor- 
oughly like Beecher. This was another 
remark of his: "There are hissing men 
in this audience, yet are you not re- 
spectable? There was one Judas; is 
Christianity a hoax?" 

Lord Wharncliffe was the spokesman 
for the Slave Holders' Association and 
he made a number of statements that 
Mr. Beecher knew were untrue. Stevens 
was another speaker and claimed that 
the republic was built on the corner- 
stone of slavery. Whancllffe claimed 
that ships were fitted out for the slave 
trade in New York and Boston, and 
Beecher said: "Yes, it is true, but those 
ships were just as much despised, 
loathed and hissed by New Fork mer- 
chants as if tiny had put up the black 
of piracy." Somebody said: "We 
are fighting for the Union and not for 
the slave." "Yes," said Beecher, "why 
are we fighting for tie- Union? Because 
we believe that tin- 1'nion and its gov- 
ernment now administered by Northern 

men will work out the emancipation of 

every living being on the contlnenl of 

Annrica." 

it gives me a great deal of pleasure 
to be here with you to-night, it gives 
me a great deal of pleasure to testify 

to t he fact i hat Mr, i :■ . el,, r Forga> e me 
years afterwards in his own house for 

any part that I mlghl have- had in the 

reception " i gave him In Manchester, 
i li i Med to admire him \ ery much when 
he lived in Peeksklll ami i have read 

many of his Works. I want to s:iv that 
I am an Ann i li-.in citizen now; I have 

forty years ami i am more 

American now than I am English, but 

i thoughl it would not he uninteresting 
to know something <>r tin- feeling that 
actuated tie- English populace, and in 

Iv the English boy. In ! 

With a f' w good oighl words by 

hut aimIt .in. in.- seventh an- 



nual dinner of the Lincoln Society of 
Peekskill was concluded at the very 
reasonable and seasonable hour of 
11.30. 

The menus were in the usual style 
of the Lincoln dinners — a four page 
leaflet of heavy white dresden within 
a heavy buff cover and tied with silk. 




FRED F. ROE. 

On the front was the medallion of Lin- 
coln. On the first inside page of the 
cover was this soniiei 

ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 



And go they burled Lincoln? Strange ami 

vain! 
lias any creature thought of Lincoln hid 
in any vault 'math any coffin lid. 
In all the years since that wild Spring 

of pain? 

'Tis false in- never in the grave hath 

lain. 

You could not bury him although you 

slid 

Upon his clay the Cheops Pyramid 

Or leap.'. I it with the Rocky Mountain 

cha in ; 
'rii.y si.u themselves they hut set Lin 

coin free, 
in aii t h. earth his great heart i" its at 

strong, 
shall beat while pulses thiol, to chivalrj 

And hum wilh hate of tyranny and 

wrong. 
w hoaoi \ • r win, may And him, anj 



23 



where 
Save in the tomb, not there — he is not 
there. 

— JAMES McKAY. 

On the third page of the cover was 
this reference to the great emanci- 
pator: 

LINCOLN. 

Born February 12, 1809. 

When the sons of men go forth to 
war they have never lacked their leader. 
For sailing the unplumed sea, and dar- 
ing the rim of the world, there are gen- 
tlemen a-plenty to take the trail. Great 
captains have there been for all these 
moods of men, adventurous, militant, 
intrepid. But in man's deepest need he 
goes unled and disconsolate. He craves 
some great companion who is acquainted 
with his grief. Deeper than his high 
courage and adventurous quest lies his 
immemorial heart-ache, the price he pays 
for being finer than his imperfect world, 
larger than his dest'ny, more sensitive 
than his environment. He suffers be- 
cause all that is excellent in him is 
troubled with the human spectacle, the 
almost universal sadness of things, the 
injustice done his mates. 

Once and again in history have men 
felt themselves in a presence luminous 
with pity and love, who answered this 
cry of their being. One of them was the 
man whom our country knew in its an- 
guish. In him once more had the heart 
that lies hidden behind this vain show of 
things released its infinite yearning into 
the world of men. Once more had some- 
thing out of the mystery so loved the 
world. 

He came to the common folk. He is 
of us, by that strange guise, marred face, 
untutored way. He suffered even as we 
from the scorn of the proud, the sudden 
blows of fate, the silent wear of time 
and chance. He overspread a continent 
with his pity. Men became strong to 
endure, for love lay waiting at the end, 
nor were they hopeless in defeat when 
pity enfolded their striving. 

One more such man and we throw off 
hate and base desire, and create a world 
that would make that lonely heart at 
home. 

ARTHUR H. GLEASON. 
Courtesy of American Magazine. 

On the last page of the cover was 
an American flag. 

On the first page of the inside leaf- 
let was the announcement, date, etc., 
of the dinner: 

On page two were the officers, as 
follows: 

President — Homer Anderson. 
Secretary — J. Coleridge Darrow. 



Treasurer — Edward Finch Hill. 

Vice-Presidents — A. D. Dunbar, James 
K. Apgar, Isaac H. Smith, Allan L. Sut- 
ton, Leverett F. Crumb, Alzamore H. 
Clark, Perley H. Mason. 

Board of Directors — Hugh J. McGow- 
an, Wilbur L. Ellis, Frank Southard, 
John Smith, Jr., George E. Briggs, Clif- 
ford Couch, Albert Ellis Phin. 

Honorary Members — Hon. Frederick 
W. Seward, Senator Chauncey M. Depew, 
Col. Archie E. Baxter, Hon. Cornelius A. 
Pugsley, Hugh C. Townley, D.D., Hon. 
Edwin A. Merritt, Jr., Hon. John Currey, 
Hon. John E. Andrus, Rev. Wilfred H. 
Sobey, Champe S. Andrews, John Collett 
Darrow, Uriah Hill, Jr., Kerr Boyce Tup- 
Der, D.D., Rev. Walter M. Walker, Hon. 
Charles R. Skinner, Hon. Samuel Mc- 
Millan, Col. William P. Roome, Hon. 
George M. Palmer, Francis M. Frye, 
John Halsted, Robert A. Rotche, Hon. J. 
Mayhew Wainwright, Hon. George Ad- 
dington, Col. Henry W. Knight, Dr. H. 
W. Bertholf, Hon. Samuel P. McConnell. 

Our Silent Comrades — George S. Starr, 
Edgar F. Dunning, Ardenus R. Free, 
James T. Sutton, Charles D. Shepard, 
Warren Jordan, Edward Wells, Jr., David 
W. Travis, Eugene B. Travis, B. C. 
Everinghim, William Wood, A. J. Bar- 
rett, George Morton, Samuel Stevens, 
John R. Van Wormer, George W. Rob- 
ertson, Jean La Rue Burnett, Thomas 
Nelson. 

On page three were the famous 
songs, "Star-Spangled Banner," "Amer- 
ica," and the "Battle Hymn of the 
Republic," too well known to need 
repetition here. 

On the last page of the leaflet was 
the menu, already printed in the early 
part of this article. 

So the evening passed, and the sev- 
enth annual Lincoln dinner became 
history. Once more it was demon- 
strated that the Lincoln dinner had 
not only come to stay, but that it is 
one of the important annual social 
and civic functions of Peekskill. 



After the dinner the directors met 
in the dining room for organization. 

There were present Homer Ander- 
son, Wilbur L. Ellis, John Smith, Jr., 
Clifford Couch, Hugh J. McGowan, Ed- 
ward F. Hill, James K. Apgar, Allan 
L. Sutton, Dr. A. D. Dunbar, Fred F. 
Roe, Hon. Isaac H. Smith, Dr. Perley 
H. Mason, Dr. Albert E. Phin and Geo. 
E. Briggs. 

On motion of Mr. Apgar, Wilbur L. 
Ellis was made chairman. On motion 



24 



of Mr. Hill, Geo. E. Briggs was named 
as secretary. 

On regular nomination and in each 
case by a single ballot cast by the 
secretary, on motion, these officers 
were elected for the ensuing year: 

President — Homer Anderson. 

Vice-Presidents — A. D. Dunbar. Jas. 



K. Apgar, Isaac H. Smith, Allan L. 
Sutton, Leverett F. Crumb, Alzamore 
H. Clark, Perley H. Mason. 

Secretary — J. Coleridge Darrow. 

Treasurer— Edward P. Hill. 

Mr. Anderson thanked the gentlemen 
for the honor conferred and the direct- 
ors meeting adjourned. 




EAGLE HOTEL, 

Permanent Headquarters of the Lincoln Society of Feekskill. 






